There are many PIAAC symposiums and papers being presented at the 2016 AERA Conference in Washington DC, as well as an Adult Literacy and Adult Education (ALAE) SIG Business Meeting. Read below for more information on each event and presentation.

Symposiums

There will be a PIAAC symposium on "The Impact of Skills on Life Chances and Social Mobility for Adults Around the World" on Saturday, April 9, 2016 from 4:05pm-6:05pm. This session examines various aspects of skills formation, skills inequality and the association between skills and labour market and other social outcomes. For this purpose Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) offers the potential of generating novel insights. Papers in this session take advantage of PIAAC and examine from a cross-country perspective 1) the evolution of skills inequality and its impact on social mobility; 2) the impact of education policy in enhancing the role of schools in contributing to skill formation; 3) the interplay between skills and migration and lastly 4) how to rank countries in terms of educational poverty given the diversity of distributions of levels of skills competencies across countries. For more information on this session, please click here. 

There will be a PIAAC symposium on "What PIAAC Says About the Effects of Social Background on Adult Skills and Social Mobility" on Sunday, April 10, 2016 from 8:15am-9:45am. This session will focus on the impact of social background on the skill level of adults, looking at factors such as parental education level and immigration status. All papers will use data from the 2012 Main Study of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and the final paper will also include new data from the 2014 PIAAC National Supplement.  This first paper will present descriptive statistics examining the relationships between skills of young adults from immigrant and native families and their individual and family characteristics across five study countries. The second paper includes regressions examining if the advantages of having highly educated parents are associated with educational attainment and literacy/numeracy level in adulthood. The third paper will introduce data from the newly released 2014 PIAAC National Supplement, focusing on the skills of young adults, unemployed adults, older adults, and incarcerated adults. For more detailed information on this session, please click here.

There will be a PIAAC symposium on "Technology Tools for Real-World Skill Assessments in Schools" on Monday, April 11, 2016 from 4:05pm-5:35pm. Changes in the world economy, specifically toward information industries, have changed the skillset demand of many jobs (Organization for Economic Development [OECD], 2012a). Major employers and policy makers are increasingly asking teachers and educators to help students develop so-called real-world skills (Gallup, 2013). These skills that facilitate mastery and application of science, mathematics, language arts, and other school subjects will grow in importance over the coming decade (National Research Council, 2012; OECD, 2012a, 2012b). Because of the importance of promoting these skills, we have embarked on a journey to create a Handbook of Research on Technology Tools for Real-World Skill Development. In this symposium the Handbook will be introduced, and four sample chapters will be presented and discussed. For more information on this session, please click here.

Papers

There will be a PIAAC paper presented on "Overeducation, Skills, and Wage Penalty With Focus on Heterogeneous Labor". This paper is part of the "Education, Wages, and the Labor Market" Roundtable Session 7 on Friday, April 8, 2016 from 2:15pm-3:45pm. For more information on this Roundtable Session 7, please click here.

There will be a PIAAC paper presented on "Adult Readiness to Learn: An International Study of Individual and Contextual Predictors". This paper will be presented during the paper session on "Adult Transitions in an Era of College and Career Readiness", which is scheduled to take place on Saturday, April 9, 2016 from 10:35am-12:05pm. For more information on this paper session, please click here.

There will be a PIAAC paper presented on "Associations Between Adults' Education Skills and Political Efficacy: An Analysis of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies U.S. Data Set". This paper will be presented during the paper session on "Dimensions of Adult Literacy and College Reading Comprehension", which is scheduled for Saturday, April 9, 2016 from 4:05pm-5:35pm. For more information on this paper session, please click here. 

Business Meeting

There will be an "Adult Literacy and Adult Education (ALAE)" SIG Business Meeting on Saturday, April 9, 2016 from 6:15pm-7:45pm. The ALAE SIG invites all SIG members and their guests to join us for an informative business meeting and two informal presentations related to adult education research. Their agenda includes an invited presentation on Office of Career and Technical Education's research efforts and an update on the Center for the Study of Adult Literacy. Dr. Johan Uvin, Acting Assistant Secretary for Career, Technical, and Adult Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE), U.S. Department of Education, will give an update on OCTAE activities and research in regard to adult and workforce literacy preparation, including PIAAC research opportunities. Dr. Daphne Greenberg, Principal Investigator, Center for the Study of Adult Literacy, and Distinguished University Professor, Department of Educational Psychology, Special Education, and Communication Disorders, Georgia State University, will give an update on the work of the Center for the Study of Adult Literacy. 

For more information on the conference, please visit http://www.aera.net/EventsMeetings/AnnualMeeting/tabid/10208/Default.aspx.